Mental Health

Working as an independent behavioral health provider in a larger clinic setting.

Your affiliation with a larger clinic doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t need to incorporate your healthcare practice, procure additional insurance, or conduct regular HIPAA risk analyses — especially if you’re not an actual employee of that practice. For a low flat-fee cost, we’ll review the details of your practice and provide you with an operating agreement including your privacy guidelines, practice policies, and more.
We can create agreements between you, your affiliated clinic, and/or your coworkers. These agreements may state the exact nature of your working relationship, may protect you from your colleagues’ negligence if they’re sued, and may explain the circumstances under which your relationship may be terminated.

We create your practice from the ground-up. We’ll handle the legal formation, procure your business license, create your HIPAA plan, and work together on your intake forms.
We’ll help you understand permissible means of recruiting new clients, fee-splitting or fee-sharing restrictions, negotiate insurance contracts, and understand the parameters of offering “charity care” or sliding-scale services.
You’ll need to obtain appropriate insurance and understand where your greatest risk and liability might be hiding. We can connect you with a broker and provide specific policy suggestions.
You’ll understand your obligations as a solo provider, including how you’ll obtain coverage when you’re on vacation or the amount of experience required before you can work alone.

We handle all of the legal and compliance aspects of practice start-up, including: corporate formation with the state, business licensure, HIPAA and privacy planning, and employee hiring and training.
We educate you as to the most current rules concerning fraud and abuse, fee-splitting or fee-sharing, referrals, prescribing, Medicare and Medicaid compliance, EMR and other recordkeeping rules.
We’ll help you determine whether you will have a cash-based or insurance-based practice, and the specific rules that apply to each.

The healthcare laws are rapidly changing. You’ll also find that your clients’ insurance plans, your office lease, your work hours, and your rates will change over time. And then, there’s the requirement that you conduct regular privacy risk analyses, that you properly supervise any students, interns, or employees, and that you maintain your records properly. We allow the option to hand over compliance issues to us: we will send you an email when it’s time to analyze your risk, to update an insurance contract, or to renew your lease.
Some practices use our practice audit consulting service, where we spend a morning observing your employees, reviewing your intake forms, and absorbing your clinic environment. We then provide you with clear, bullet-pointed instructions as to how you can improve your compliance with your state practice act, other applicable laws, and with HIPAA.